


I Grieve for Thee

by rosalind25



Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 10:25:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11781216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosalind25/pseuds/rosalind25
Summary: Guy of Gisborne has stabbed the Nightwatchman; Robin and the outlaws all believe Marian to be dead. So why does Gisborne survive the ensuing battle?





	I Grieve for Thee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jadey36](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadey36/gifts), [Athenais_Penelope_Clemence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Athenais_Penelope_Clemence/gifts), [Countess_of_Sherwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Countess_of_Sherwood/gifts), [animaprincess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/animaprincess/gifts), [la_petite_Boleyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_petite_Boleyn/gifts), [greek_meduza_of_my_own_kingdom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greek_meduza_of_my_own_kingdom/gifts).



> Disclaimer: all BBC Robin Hood characters and the show are the property of Tiger Aspect Productions and the BBC.

“Ro-bin….” Just his name; a lilting taunt.

“Oh, Rob-in. Come out, come out wherever you are….”

His head is bowed, his tears coating Marian’s breast.

“They’ll not even let me grieve for thee, my love…”

The thought flows from Robin’s heart like the life-blood that has seeped, steadily and relentlessly, from Marian’s body. It tugs his head up, becoming something else. Becoming resolve.

He imagines he can feel them snap, the bonds of humanity, and compassion, and justice, that tether him to the man he is here, today.

Becoming action.

Robin bursts out of the cave.

He’s fast on his feet, and light; he always has been. Whether at the king’s side, in bloodied battle, or leading the gang through the greenwood in flight or chase. He’s not leading them now, as he hurtles out of the cave. In this moment, he’s not the leader of anyone. Yet his instincts don’t desert him. He notices this in detached fashion, somewhere in the back of his mind, how the ingrained experience of years has him note positions, numbers, angles, the fall of the light, which shot to take first, which second, though in fact none of it really matters. He knows he can take them; he can take them all. And he will.

Oh yes – he will.

He takes position, sweeps an arrow from his quiver, aims, feels the sweet release as it sings from his bow. There’s an upwelling of something in him that demands blood to assuage it. Robin tells himself, as arrow follows arrow and as men fall, that it’s justice. That this is their fault. That it’s their relentless hounding, their persecution of his people, their perversion of justice, which has led to _this_ – to Marian, the partner of his heart, his sustaining light, his _beloved_ …..

….he recognises the lie. Whether it’s justice or not, he doesn’t truly care. He fights because he’s afraid – a-feared of what comes next. To keep it at bay, he lets the anger, and the hatred, rise. It obscures all else. It reverts him to those killing years, the days when he fought by the king and could kill – efficiently, over and over, the limit determined only by the number of foes – and oh, they were endless and relentless in number - because it was what he needed to do, and because he was _good_ at it…

With the will of old surging in him, Robin rolls down the slope. He rises to one knee, slams his arrows into the ground, and takes aim; the need for revenge, like an affliction that grips and shakes the spirit, holds him fast. He has an arrow nocked, three more held ready. Robin fires, in swift succession. He wants to wash the forest in blood, with sacrifices like those the ancient gods of the land would once demand.

But it’s not enough.

Arrows gone, he draws his scimitar, a motion so deadly in resolve that it calls upon the ferocity of his past, one mired in a blood-spilling no amount of words by pope or king could ever have made holy. He surges forward. There’s nothing for him behind, back where death crows its craven victory upon the brow of his beloved. This thought makes him falter; it almost undoes him.

But the price of that victory is blood, and he doesn’t care how many pay it. He sprints down the slope, his steps flowing to the hammer-beat of grief in his heart. He’ll not yield to it. Weapons drawn, the gang follow. Their fierce cries resound against the forest walls, as madness bears down upon the hapless guards. Robin knows that it’s no ancient spirits of the land rising to demand their dues in blood, but his own anguish, and his _need_ for vengeance, and the fact that he doesn’t know what else to do with this moment in time, dictating that men will die.

Guards fall at his feet; the scimitar slices, bites, intent in each strike. Forward Robin presses, forward, nothing to go back for. There comes a moment, then, when no foe faces him. He sees Gisborne, hovering at the edge of battle on horseback. _Coward_. _Murderer_. Gisborne’s gaze meets his.

There comes a moment, like those he sometimes experienced in the Holy Land, when, despite all its noise and gore and horror the battle seems to fade away. When there is only you, and a single adversary. When the world shrinks to naught but the fleeting invincibility of one life, and the taking of another.

And Gisborne’s is there, for the taking. Robin can see it, he can taste it….he knows he could sprint right then through the chaos in the clearing, and visualises how he would do it, the anger that would power a strike strong enough to cleave head from neck. _It’s_ _deserved_.

But Robin holds. Can Gisborne see the effort it costs him, how his blade trembles slightly, as he resists the urge? Gisborne is exposed, despite the distance separating them. Robin knows he could do it, and he would revel in it – Marian’s murderer.

But he holds.

No, a different end. Gisborne must _know_ , as the blade goes in, that fatal thrust, what he’s done. He must know _why_ he dies. Not today, perhaps; his, a stalking death, one to anticipate, a whisper in the night of steel sliding between ribs, as he hisses into Gisborne’s ear the knowledge of whose life he stole, and how.

He wants the knowledge to destroy Gisborne, the way it has destroyed him.

Does his enemy suspect? Does he wonder why his gang now kill and maim, bearing down upon them like men possessed? Ludicrous, that the fool believed himself in love with Marian. That he would _wed_ her. But, so be it. Gisborne must suffer, as he does.

No, not as he does….for no other could bear her a love so deep as his. Marian’s loss strips him from his element, like a fish torn from the sea with no way back, left feeling that the very air must suffocate him. Perhaps the stag too, felled by a hunter’s arrow, would feel so - it’s last vision of sky and leaves overhead clouded not only by agony, but by a faint puzzlement as to how his life could be leaving him in this way, seeping slowly out into the loam.

Gisborne’s horse is restive; it sidesteps as a guard falls nearby. An arrow flies, and his enemy ducks. The moment is severed.

“Gisborne, do something,” shouts the sheriff.  
  
It becomes a rout; Gisborne’s hoarse shout calls the retreat. Grimly, Robin goes back to his task, his blade a thing of fury in his grip. He’ll not stop because he can’t, and nor will he. The price must be paid. Because behind him is only the cave, and death to face, both Marian’s and that of his heart.

He can feel it dying in him, even as he kills.

Blood, soaking into the loam.  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
